Last week, Reserve
Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel appeared before the
parliamentary standing committee on finance for a second time
this year. But even on this occasion, Patel expressed his
inability to apprise the committee of the total value of old
notes that have returned to the central bank after the massive
currency swap exercise undertaken last year. There is a great
yearning among people in general, and not just the members of
the parliamentary committee, to find out this information
because almost everyone in the country was involved in the
currency swap exercise. But the public could not watch the
proceedings of Patel’s testimony before the committee; one had
to rely on source-based media reports.

In contrast, the testimony of James Comey, the former Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director who was fired by US
President Donald Trump, before the Senate intelligence committee
was watched live by people across the world. Portions of his
testimony were carried live by some TV channels even in India.
After all, the drama of the investigation into Russian links
with the Trump presidential campaign—the episode which formed
the context of Comey’s firing—made for sensational viewing. A
few years ago, the grilling of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and
his son James Murdoch by a British parliamentary committee had
an audience across the globe, including in India. Certainly, a
much bigger audience was interested in Patel’s testimony before
the parliamentary committee.

It is important, at this point, to make a distinction between
regular deliberations of the parliamentary committees and
testimonies of important public officials before these
committees. There is a reasonable argument against broadcasting,
or even providing physical access to the public to regular
meetings of the committee. Away from the gaze of the camera, the
members can exchange their frank opinions without being tempted
to indulge in public posturing. But there is a genuine case—as
has been previously argued by Chakshu Roy of PRS Legislative
Research (goo.gl/GyDQoA)—for mounting some cameras in the room
for testimonials. The process of taking evidence by the select
committees in the UK—from where India derives its parliamentary
system—is open to the public with very few exceptions.

Beyond the testimonials, there is enough room to push for more
transparency even in regular committee meetings. The UK
parliament keeps some of its select committee meetings open to
the public and publishes a calendar of such meetings in advance.
The meetings of both the Senate and the House of Representatives
in the US are open to public except in a few circumstances when
the matter being discussed requires confidentiality owing to
reasons of national security, prosecution of a criminal offence,
trade secrets, etc. The committees of the European Union
Parliament are open to the public and the proceedings are
broadcast live. In South Africa, the constitution itself
provides that the legislature cannot exclude the public and the
media “from a sitting of a committee unless it is reasonable and
justifiable to do so in an open and democratic society.”

In India, there have been rare examples of a few state
legislatures throwing their committee meetings open to public as
a one-off case. Parliament can take the lead and allow for
public participation in certain important committee meetings.
This is especially warranted in cases where public interest is
extraordinarily high. The decision on which meeting has to be
made open can be vested with a high constitutional authority
like the speaker. In other cases, the presence of cameras can
indeed lead to greater histrionics and thus dampen the quality
of proceedings. And therefore, the cause of transparency can be
better served by releasing transcripts of the meetings after a
stipulated period of time.

But these reforms will not be successful in the prevailing
political culture of the country. The legislators in advanced
democracies in Europe and North America are free to take their
independent positions and they don’t necessarily toe the party
line on each and every issue under the sun. In India, the
political culture has been marred by the whip system of
political parties, the anti-defection law and the lack of
intra-party democracy. If individual legislators are unshackled
from party lines, they will be encouraged to expend more effort
in studying the matter to be discussed in committee meetings.
They will also be freer to honour the views of their respective
constituents rather than be bulldozed by high command fiats. The
voters, in turn, can follow and vote on their representative’s
legislative performance—it remains an under-appreciated concern
in India that so many voters choose their legislators on
parameters of local development, which is essentially the
responsibility of the executive.

The German Bundestag meets in Berlin’s Reichstag building, which
has a glass dome at the top. Ordinary folks are allowed to climb
the glass dome and they can gaze over the legislators at work
from the top. The symbolical meaning is that people are above
parliament. The Indian Parliament doesn’t have such a dome but
it is the principle of superiority of citizens that is more
important. And Indian people deserve greater transparency. Live
broadcast of testimonials before parliamentary committees is a
good low-hanging fruit to start with.